THE DETECTIVE
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you can't eat raw meat. Tonight it's not too late to speak. But to–
morrow you will be sorry, believe you me! .Well?"
Davie looked at
him
blankly. Some cool cucumber that boy
was! Pickled in vinegar! And then the girl, Marie, burst into a
steady jag of laughing, that silly giggling of hers that seemed to
have no relevance to the world ot'this particular instance, as proved
by the way she stopped the minute the boy jogged her.
"Will you just wait one second, Mr. Acker? I heard you out
long enough. So let's not kid around. You come in here where you
don't belong, where people are having a good time. You start in
yelling at me for picking up a can of your rotten pears. What is
this crazy story
a:bout
meat now?"
"Davie, your last chance. I don't know how many hundred
pounds of fresh beef we lost around here in seven weeks, but this I
can
tell you: tomorrow the detective comes down! Once he's here
on the premises, it will be too late-for everybody."
The boy stubbed ,his cigarette out on the dresser top next to
his
head, and looking right at him, said, cold and level, with a
voice like a smack in the face, "All right, Mr. Solomon Acker, that's
enough crap from you. You think you know so much! A couple
cans of fruit, a pineapple, an orange, maybe a bottle of milk--okay?
If
you're such a goddam cheap little punky steward for your lord
and master that son of a bitch Gruber that you have to sit and
count over a mountain of stock every night, you just try proving it.
Right, girls? Look at this little bastard, he comes sneaking around
after his five dollars worth of goods any decent place would
give
the help once in a while. Then he says he'll call in a detective, a
detective yet, for god's sake! because everybody's having fun Satur–
day night. That's really the best, that's holy! Go on, call the
detective down, see what you get!"
Acker reiterated, feeling as if he was being gagged by a slimy
dishcloth, feeling as if the earth were falling away, "The meat!
The meat! What about the meat! What happened to all my choice
meat? I want to know how you did it!"
"What meat? Who knows where your meat is? Don't be crazy,
Acker. Meat, he says!"
Acker sought again to rise. He would have throttled the boy
lying there at ease with that derisive naked black female. He would
have throttled her too. He tried to speak out but could not.
The
